Outdoor Wood Furnace Info
All-Purpose OWF Discussions => Plumbing => Topic started by: hondaracer2oo4 on July 24, 2015, 05:45:56 PM
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I think this approach may be a little be controversial but I believe for me it is the best way to go. I would like some suggestions on my approach and my design. I purchased slimjim's Heatmaster G200 show boiler which I will get at the end of October.
So a little background. Heating a 220 year old 2800 sqft colonial in New England. I am currently heating with a hardy h4 boiler built in 1991. Current set up in the house is a lay down oil furnace circa 1985. I have a water to air hx in the plenum and have burned very little oil since buying the home 4 years ago. I have found that whenever I have tried to use the furnace it takes a long time for it to heat up the water in the hx before it actually can send some decently hot air out of the vents. I average around 12 cords Of hardwood from November 1 to around May 1.
Now to the new System. I would like to try and cut down on my wood usage and would like an efficient back up system in the house that I can go away for the weekend and it will keep the owb warm and heat the house. I have purchased a heatmaster g200 to install this fall. It should help cut down on my wood usage. Second thing is that I have purchased a 10 year old Weil mclain gold series 185k btu oil boiler to replace the old oil furnace. I plan on removing the old oil furnace and installing the boiler in its place. I will tie the supply and return lines for the forced hot air together with a plenum that has the water to air hx and the blower in it. I plan to run the supply line from the owb through a flat plate hx on the boiler then to the water air hx then back to the boiler.
So my original plan was to just tie everything together in a loop. It was suggested to me that I do things a little different but I am not sure if it is the right move. The suggestion was to put only the flat plate in the owb loop. Then run the water to air hx on a loop off of the oil boiler. That would keep me from having to heat the owb water up to 180 and keep me from having alot of standby loss when I am just running the oil boiler. Now my thought was that the oil boiler may be a little bit oversized for my application but not way out of the ball park. I figured that I would use the owb as basically a buffer tank when I run the oil boiler to keep it from shortcycling.
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Honda, First Please let me Thank You for your purchase, next Thank you for asking and not simply taking one suggestion from an old Hippie, I will be very interested in comments and suggestions, this is exactly why our forum exists!
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I would set up the add on indoor boiler to the existing hot air heat exchanger in its own loop. Then use a secondary loop to a flat plate to heat the boiler. Use a double throw aquastat -like a ranco- to switch between the secondary loop pump or the oil gun.This way you can keep your boiler pressurized like it was designed to and isolate treated boiler water. The ranco stat would be keyed to outdoor furnace water temp and anytime boiler temp would drop below set temp would change over. You could load your stove before leaving get all you can from it and when it runs out would switch. Your G200 has an auto shutdown on low temp so your draft fan would turn off. No need to keep your owb hot with oil and your primary pump would run to keep it from freezing. If you found your indoor boiler short cycling put in a smaller gpm nozzle. You may need a second flat plat for dhw if you do not get that from the oil boiler. Slim and I talked about this kind of situation at our last dealer meeting.He may have a better Idea. Good man to have on board.
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I have tried to wrap my head around what you are trying to describe but I am confused. I drew up as far as I could figure, could you point me a little bit more about what you are thinking? Thanks
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Honda, I think I will be doing another road trip to western NH at the end of this week, would you like for us to stop by and have a look at your system? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.
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Id welcome you if your interested in stopping by. When would you be coming through?
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I need to swing by Cabo's place on Thursday and assist in his friends install, I don't expect to be there past Friday evening so I'm hoping Saturday sometime.
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I should be home Saturday. Give me a call when we get closer to Saturday, I should have a better idea if I'll be around. Thanks!
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OK , just in case I brain fart, don't be afraid to remind me!
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hope this comes through. You have a colder climate than we do so some added control may be needed to keep the owb from freezing when not in use. You should see a big drop in wood use however you hook this stove up. May take a little getting used to after burning a conventional unit,but these G's are strong wood sipping units when run right.
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A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks!!!! I assume that they are using a ETC-1110000?? What are they trying to show with relationship to hooking up the the oil boiler control? What is the C for? I know that the N/C and N/O is normally closed and normally open but not sure what the C does? I think for freeze protection I could use some sort of timer controller that would take over and run the flat plate pump for 5 mins everything 30 or something like that. Any suggestions on what to use there would be appreciated. Thanks again!!!!
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How about an Intermatic CT2000 controller wired in tandem to the pump for the flat plate? When the Ranco stopped giving the pump power it could kick the pump on for a couple minutes and then be off for the rest of the cycle and then kick it on again. Should be able to heat up enough water to keep the OWB water from getting to cold.
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Yes etc-1110000. C is common to the no and nc terminals. In other words it switches the positive between the oil gun and the pump heating from the flate plate. You could use another Ranco to run this pump in case water temp goes below 35 in the owb to backfeed some heat-freeze protection. Seems to me you already have a good setup for backup heat without the boiler add on and so much simpler. I would leave it like it is and watch this G200 do its thing.
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I certainly like the simplicity or my current set up, very few pieces of the puzzle to break down. The problem that I have though is that it takes forever to heat up the water in the water to air hx in order to get any warm air out of the vents. I put a relay to interrupt the owb pump when the oil furnace runs. Before I did that with the furnace circulating cold water resulted in never getting any hot air out Of the vents because it was bassicly working in reverse. The other thing is that the furnace is 30 years old and in tough shape, tin is all loose. I am really looking to have a quality backup system that works well.
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Slim, I will be around all day on Saturday. What time you think youll be by?
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Could you PM me your address and phone number again so I have it? We will probably leave Chester Vt. Around 8 AM.
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Pm sent
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I'm not sure of an exact time Honda but thanks for the PM, we should be leaving here around 8 AM so slow travel time from Chester VT. Ken or as you guys know him (Cabo) said it would be OK to post a pic of him with the new hat that he earned by doing the copper work on his buddies job, he really did do a nice job!
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Ill be around. I am on the left headed north. Double mailboxes on a granite mailbox post. Two story center chimney colonial.
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After talking with Slim today this is the direction that I am going. Any suggestions?
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I like the idea there. Lots of pumps, but I assume they're all fairly tiny and inexpensive (relatively).
I see the main loop at labelled 1-1/4". Is that Pex or black iron or...? I suspect the main loop could actually be quite small, more along the lines of a manifold system rather than a big loop since each appliance is on it's own loop.
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Not pex, either black iron or copper. I think I am leaning towards copper. I don't plan on making te primary loop very big, big enough though to add a couple spots for any future expansion if I want which slimjim recommended. I am thinking a taco 007 would be big enough for all of the pump spots. The oil boiler, water to air hx and sidearm pumps will all be only running when a call for heat happens. The primary loop pump will run 24/7 and so will the owb pump.
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I wonder if this would work for you
http://www.supplyhouse.com/Sioux-Chief-672XV4L-11313-Manifold-1-Male-Sweat-x-1-Female-Sweat-Trunks-w-1-2-PEX-Crimp-Ball-Valves-11-Outlets (http://www.supplyhouse.com/Sioux-Chief-672XV4L-11313-Manifold-1-Male-Sweat-x-1-Female-Sweat-Trunks-w-1-2-PEX-Crimp-Ball-Valves-11-Outlets)
It's 1" on the main barrel, but 1" copper has a larger ID than 1" PEX or black iron.
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I know they aren't the best pics or the best drawing but could you guys look them over and see what I have missed or should think about. Thanks!
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Ok Honda, I'll give it a try, your drawings are a bit hard to follow for me on the IPad but here goes, first the 90's at the ports on the plate exchanger could be what we call bull nose tees, 1 inch copper, then straight through is 1/2 or 3/4 inch female pipe and then the side leg is again 1 inch copper, this allows for drains to be installed in the female pipe thread ports for future cleaning without removal of the plate exchanger.
Next is the water to air exchanger, you have temp gauges on both sides, I'm not sure that is money well spent, instead typically there would be an aqua stat that monitors the exiting water temp, it would be used to turn the fan motor on and off by temp rise and fall, this ensures that the fan does not come on before hot water reaches the heat exchanger.
That is all I see right off but again it is hard to read for me, perhaps if you E Mail me your drawings it will be clearer
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Thanks Richard, I sent you an email to mainlycustomsawing@yahoo.com, hopefully that is your email. Thanks again.
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Perfect, got it and yes it is much easier to read now, Thank You! I would use the bull nose tees instead of the regular 90's and move the ball valves to between the temp gauges and the bull nose tees.
Also your expansion tank and air separator should be on the primary loop with a minimum of 18 inches of straight run before the air separator in order to function best! Note, ball valves should NEVER be shut off when the oil boiler is in operation
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Thank you. I will get to ordering parts and assembly! Should I put any y strainers anywhere? What about air vents?
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Yes on the Y strainers IF you are going to clean them, most people never do so, then it's a waste. Yes on bottle vents but only on the pressurized side of the system.
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Where in the system should I place the Y's and the vents?
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Y strainers on the non pressurized side, preferably before the circ, a bypass loop around it would be a good idea in case they plug and the bottle vents should go to high spots in the pressurized loops, Callefi makes a nice bottle vent that comes with a separate check valve to make changing it a breeze!
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Any suggestions for online retailers of fittings? Supplyhouse has everything but some stuff is crazy priced. The cxfptxc bull nose tee in 1 1/4x 3/4x 1 1/4 is $37 each! Pex universe only goes up to 1x3/4x1 but they only want $6 for them!
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Any suggestions on reasonably priced plumbing supply websites?